Lloyds offloads Scottish Widows Europe in £100m deal
Lloyds Banking Group has offloaded its European life insurance business to FTSE 250 firm Chesnara in the latter’s second major deal with a UK bank.
The FTSE 100 banking giant – which posted a hefty profit jump last month for the 2025 financial year – has inked a €110m (£96m) deal with Chesnara for Luxembourg-based Scottish Widows Europe.
Chesnara said the acquisition would add around €1.7bn in assets under administration and about 46,000 in-force policies, which refer to life insurance and pension contracts.
The UK-based pensions consolidator also expects the fresh addition to its portfolio to contribute around €250m of cash over the lifetime of its policies.
The firm framed the deal as an “attractive multiple” to markets on Monday, after paying around 64 cents for every euro of value Scottish Widows Europe owns.
Chesnara takes another batch of policyholders from a big bank
Chesnara boss, said: “Scottish Widows Europe is another material and value-accretive transaction with a product set that we know well. It marks our entry into Luxembourg, providing a new platform for in-market and wider European consolidation and expansion.
“We are pleased that another major financial institution, Lloyds Banking Group, has chosen us to look after their policyholders.”
The deal comes after Chesnara snapped up HSBC’s UK life protection arm in a £260m deal funded through a combination of external resources, credit facility and a equity raise.
The acquisition was completed at the beginning of February and brought near £4bn of assets under administration and approximately 454,000 policies into the group.
Chesnara said after the completion it now administers around 1.4m policies across its markets, with the number set to jump following the integration of Scottish Widows Europe.
The pensions firm entered the FTSE 250 index last August, following the exit of Assura after its takeover from Primary Health Properties (PHP).